Month: September 2020

Many of you ask me for reports of my evil twin brother Tyrone, but of course I demur because I am too embarrassed to pass along his doings.  They get worse and worse.  Nonetheless, Tyrone said he was going public with this one, so I thought the damage was done in any case.  The sad news is that Tyrone is now an active proponent of QAnon.  How can he fall for such fallacies and stupidities?  He sent me this letter to explain his decision:

Dear Tyler:

You have yourself blogged about the import of child abuse, and asked why it is not condemned more widely, most of all among elites.  You even wrote that the right wing ignored the issue — I thought it is time to remedy that!  We needed a right-wing movement to protect the world’s most vulnerable citizens, and it turned out that looked like QAnon.  Besides, who is more of an elite than I am?

To be sure, the QAnon movement has its excesses, but do not all social movements?  At least it attacks criminals rather than defending them.  The key question is whether social movements shine a light on abusive practices that need further scrutiny, and there QAnon passes with flying colors.

QAnon truly has attracted attention — just look at all the complaints about Facebook enabling it.  In this world you haven’t arrived until someone can turn a criticism of you into a criticism of Facebook.

Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of…stuff…and the world’s elites continued to treat him as normal and to take his money and fly on his plane.  He wasn’t cancelled.

Roman Polanski had a successful and feted career after repeatedly doing very bad…stuff.

The sexual abuse of children has turned out to be rampant in the Catholic Church and also in Hollywood.

I saw the new HBO documentary Showbiz Kids: “In my experience, I know a lot of kids that grew up in the industry. And what surprised me when I got older was finding out that pretty much all of the young men were abused in some way, sexually.”

French intellectuals — and was there ever more of an elite than them? — petitioned to repeal age of consent laws so they can do…bad stuff…with less fear of the consequences.  (See?  Petitions really are wrong!)

By the way, Berlin authorities placed children with pedophiles for thirty years.  And that is in Germany, a country with relatively responsible governance.

This is all so sickening I can’t go on any further, and we haven’t even discussed all that goes on over the internet.

There is in fact an epidemic of child abuse, it ruins or seriously damages many millions of lives, and elites are complicit in covering it up and refusing to address the preconditions that generate so much of it.  These same elites often downplay or discourage the elevation of social conservatism, one of the few possible regulatory mechanisms society might have.  In the very worst situations, these elites are directly complicit in covering up the abuse of children.  Many of the elites partake in it themselves.

Which group has done more to publicize these failings than QAnon, the worthy successor to The Jerry Springer Show?

Yes, Yes I know.  I do not endorse all of their hypotheses concerning political economy.  Maybe Donald Trump will not in fact set all things straight, and perhaps the apocalypse is not around the corner.  No, the molesters do not worship Satan, but given their behavior they might as well.  Should we lock up all those journalists?  I don’t know.  Comet Ping Pong was never as good as Pupatella anyway.  But look — this is what you get when you build a mass movement.  The message does get dumbed down and the crazies climb on board, just as we have Antifa and some other weird groups and demands connected to what are otherwise valuable social marches.  Tyler — you have to get used to this new world of internet communications!  Walter Cronkite is gone.  Either compete or give up, and I’m not willing to do the latter.

For whatever structural reason, elite media seem less obsessed with child abuse as an issue than is “non-elite media.”  That is simply a reality we need to work with, and our unwillingness to discard traditional canons of journalism has led to the perpetuation of these abuses for centuries, indeed dating back to the very founding of the American nation.

Haven’t you read Marcuse on repressive tolerance?

And come on, this very serious guy just wrote this, but not about QAnon:

“But actually diving into the sea of trash that is social science gives you a more tangible perspective, a more visceral revulsion, and perhaps even a sense of Lovecraftian awe at the sheer magnitude of it all: a vast landfill—a great agglomeration of garbage extending as far as the eye can see, effluvious waves crashing and throwing up a foul foam of p=0.049 papers. As you walk up to the diving platform, the deformed attendant hands you a pair of flippers. Noticing your reticence, he gives a subtle nod as if to say: “come on then, jump in”.”

The rot runs much deeper than the fallacies of QAnon.

Besides, it seems that the guy behind QAPPANON (don’t ask) is “a New Jersey man in his forties with prominent roles in technical analysis and IT security for the banking sector.”  Could there be a more reliable source?

And Tyler, I know your criticize me for following these conspiracy theories. But you yourself have written of the need to imagine a future very different from the present and then bring it about? Is that not what a conspiracy tries to do?  Do we not need to counter these evil conspiracies with some more benevolent plans?

Most of all, when it comes to evaluating social movements, you can only elevate so many victims at once.  Isn’t the notion of children as the true victims the most universal and indeed the only vision that can unify this great nation?  People complain about the truth-stretching in QAnon, and OK I get that, but isn’t their real worry the revolutionary re-appropriation of which groups in society can be granted true, #1 victimhood status?  Just as Christianity accomplished a similar revaluation way back when?  (And look at some of the wacky stuff that they believe — ever read The Book of Revelation Tyler?)

I don’t want QAnon to be in charge, but what other tool do we have to force elites to deal with this issue?  Aren’t these just Saul Alinsky tactics?  QAnon isn’t going to control Congress anyway.

Besides, is not apophenia one of the roots of creativity?  Have not Millenarian movements played key and sometimes beneficial roles in Western history?  Is not Christianity itself a Millenarian movement?  How about all that weird ass shit on the back of your dollar bill?

Child abuse is the #1 issue in society right now so…pick your side!  If you don’t like it, stop your silly blogging and come up with a better anti-child abuse movement.

TC again:  See?  This is why Tyrone doesn’t appear much on this blog any more.  It used to be a funny or sometimes even thought-provoking schtick, but these days things are so out of control you’ve got to stick with message discipline.  You can’t just let one speculation lead to the next, because we have so many crazies with major league internet platforms.

Rationalism.  Fact-checking.  Only one family member at a time (sorry sis!).

Please return tomorrow, or perhaps later in the day, for a proper analysis of the incidence of property tax reform in eastern Colorado.  And perhaps there will be some new service sector jobs as well — you can apply!  In the meantime, let’s hope that Tyrone’s QAnon fandom isn’t one of them.

And no, I’m not going to try to reenter the Philippines.